March 2017 - Eventeamwork

Volunteer recruitment is the most obvious part of the volunteer management process. That is likely the reason why it is often interchangeably referred to as volunteer management.

Volunteer management however is a lot more complex with planning, engagement, training, support and communication. Volunteer recruitment is a part of this system – a crucial part of course in ensuring we get people involved with our event. Understanding its interdependency with the other areas of volunteer management is the key to succeed with volunteer recruitment.

The recruitment process can be challenging and stressful as many events heavily rely on volunteers but struggle with attracting enough volunteers. I have put together a few tips to help boost volunteer recruitment for your next event.

1. Preparation

Planning your recruitment is essential. Otherwise the recruitment drive is random, likely resulting in a poor outcome. It is key to plan how people will reach you and sign up. You can have the best recruitment call in place but if you don’t have an effective registration process you will lose people along the way before they even register.

Make registering easy. If you put yourself in the shoes of the potential volunteer during the process, you will be able to identify any obstacles that may prevent people from signing up. You could also test your process with a few colleagues.

Beware that the devil is in the detail. Think of a clearly structured volunteer registration page, an easy-to-navigate form and a phone number available for people to call if they encounter difficulties as a great foundation for your volunteer recruitment.

2. Roles

It is very common in the event industry to manage volunteers on a task by task basis rather than creating roles. Unfortunately, the more basic the role the less meaningful it is to the volunteer. Consider that the more importance you put on a role, the more importance a volunteer will put on its execution.

People are looking to assist events and organisations in a meaningful way. In addition, often people who volunteer are highly skilled in their professions. Most of these skills are transferable, so why not tap into this resource of expertise if it satisfies the event’s and the volunteer’s needs at the same time?

Creating meaningful roles will make roles more attractive for recruitment but also create a higher volunteer engagement, which will impact the overall visitor experience.

3. Your Offer

Your offer determines whom you attract as a volunteer. Incentives can be part of your offer but the most important is the experience you offer to a volunteer. In other terms what the volunteer will get out of volunteering at your event. This can differ from person to person but generally this may include skill development, being involved with a cause they care about, pro bono skilled work, meeting people and numerous others.

Consider the volunteer roles you need to fill and who would be your ideal person to fill these. Your ideal person may be part of a specific interest group or a specific industry. And your ideal person may be looking for different experiences and incentives than what you are currently offering.

Considering your target volunteers and their needs will help you create an offer that if delivered will keep volunteers motivated and committed to your event.

4. Channels

With email being less and less effective for recruitment conversations, it seems obvious to turn to social media. Social media hugely assists volunteer recruitment as it opened up opportunities to target specific groups, interests and locations.

However, it is also important to review where you find your ideal target market. There may be easier ways to reach them more effectively at a local club or at an expo for example.

Choosing the relevant channels will save you time and allows you to craft a tailored message.

5. Communication

Communication is key, both to events and to working with people. The more you can communicate and keep people informed along the way, the better engagement you will achieve.

The message you are trying to get across needs to be very clear to be effective. In marketing, going out to everyone is the most expensive way of promoting an opportunity. The same is true for volunteer recruitment. Going out and asking everyone dilutes the message.

A clear, targeted message lays out the benefits and requirements relevant to the target market before people register to volunteer.

Communicating more clearly before people register will achieve two things. It will show the commitment required, which will attract people who are serious about helping out. It will also cut out the ones who were not serious in the first place but just sign up in case it could become interesting. A clear message will save you a lot of time in the recruitment process and beyond.

Want some help?

How effective your volunteer recruitment is largely depends on how well you prepare for it and the clarity of your message to your target market.

If you need help with your volunteer recruitment check out our 6-Step Checklist that will help you improve volunteer recruitment and create better events. CLICK HERE for FREE download.

Many events cannot run without volunteers. However, often managers don’t realise the full value the volunteer program can bring to their event and organisation. Think about volunteers not showing up or volunteers not knowing what to do. In those instances the time and money spent can even have a negative impact on the event. As a result many event organisers become frustrated about working with volunteers.

It doesn’t have to be that way. On the contrary, if you are implementing a volunteer program already, why not find a way to make it more enjoyable for everyone AND run more successful events?

To achieve better event outcomes, here are the 7 things to avoid when managing volunteers for your event.

1. Hiring the wrong coordinator

Volunteer Management is often considered an entry-level role in the industry. However it’s a complex role and requires project coordination skills as well as people skills. The wrong hire will leave the volunteer coordinator overwhelmed, finding it hard to deliver all aspects of the program. This will impact the volunteers, as they may not get the attention they need.

Ultimately this affects the organisation as it leads to volunteers leaving or being disengaged and unsatisfied staff. This leads to a high turnover of volunteer coordinators.

Remember you are just as good as your team and having the right skills on your team will create better outcomes.

2. Not training enough

Volunteers completing only short shifts at an event can create the illusion that you don’t need to train them as much or that you don’t want to take more of their time.

Unfortunately, if you don’t train volunteers on their tasks as well as the bigger picture of the event, they cannot support you. This impacts your event but it also impacts your volunteers, as they feel inadequate and undervalued.

Adequate training and sharing information and your vision will empower your volunteers and integrate them into your organisational goals. This will make your work easier on site and have a positive affect not only on the volunteers but also on your event.

3. Seeing volunteers as free or saving costs

Uniforms and food for volunteers are standard budget items. However budgets often don’t allow for systems and dedicated management to run the volunteer program effectively. As a result volunteer coordinators spend a lot of time on manual tasks and are reactive rather than proactively planning and improving processes.

Make the spending on your volunteer program worthwhile by investing in planning and structuring in order to meet your organisational objectives. Without that, your budgets are used inefficiently and your volunteer program becomes a cost. The return on investment you’d want to achieve is similar to that of marketing expenses. It will show a positive image, brand awareness, and engagement of people with your event.

4. Improvising

When coordinators are engaged on temporary short contracts they often do not have enough time for planning. As a result they are just reacting to email, phone calls or the issue at hand and improvise. The volunteer program always gets implemented but with no structure or plan, the results are vague. Due to the lack of other factors to measure, the success of the volunteer program is often measured by volunteer hours spent. However, this doesn’t provide a qualitative result of how those hours were spent.

A well-planned volunteer program will start with looking for ways to improve on the previous year to achieve a different outcome. However you need to allow sufficient time for planning and structuring your next volunteer program. Once you have clear objectives you can build in indicators to measure success. You will then be able to receive a different and qualitative result in addition to the number of hours spent.

5. Focusing on recruitment only

Based on show up rates being about 50-60% in the event industry, the decision is often made to do more recruitment to allow for those large numbers not showing up.

Rather than spending the time to recruit double the amount of people, spend the time to analyse the show up rate and focus on strategies to increase this rate. As with employee engagement, volunteer engagement is very important to increase output and retention, which will show in the volunteer show up rate.

The difference to employee engagement is that volunteers have a much quicker exit from the organisation if they don’t feel valued. But volunteers are part of your team same as your staff, so engagement strategies you use for your employees mostly also work for your volunteers.

6. Thinking short-term

Annual events often work on shorter-term cycles and most of the event team is engaged on a less than 12-month contract. Staff is then only focused on the upcoming event.

Volunteer programs generally support the organisational plan and community engagement. As volunteers are a big part of the events the focus is often only on the event operations rather than the bigger picture.

Over time it can create the impression that the volunteer program only exists for the event rather than the organisation. This generates not only more work but also a lack of focus on the volunteers as they tend to be seen as temporary rather than integral to the organisation.

If you apply a strategic approach, it will ensure the program is aligned with the organisation. It creates a higher purpose for the volunteers and higher engagement and retention rates. A strategic approach saves time and money in the long run.

7. Dismissing the volunteer experience

Your volunteers’ experience is just as important as your customers’ experience. Often volunteers are taken for granted or treated differently to other people who engage with your event.

People who volunteer are part of your audience. They are connected to your vision and share your passion. Passion goes a long way, but after a bad experience or two they will spend their valuable time elsewhere and you may lose them as a volunteer and a customer.

Provide your volunteers with a great experience and focus on their benefits and their passion will enhance your event and organisation in a huge way. What better PR is there than having hundreds of brand ambassadors?

Don’t let this happen to you

As you can see an effective volunteer program takes a lot of effort. But if you are already running a volunteer program, can you afford not to put in the effort?

We hope you find these tips useful to critically analyse your volunteer program and make adjustments so it can stand out and exceed your event and organisational objectives.

We have put together a 6-Step Checklist that will help you create a more effective volunteer program step by step. You will avoid all the above mistakes and save time and money while achieving better results. CLICK HERE for FREE download.

Month: March 2017

5 Tips to Boost your Event Volunteer Recruitment